


some legends are told (you will remember me for centuries)

by dealan



Series: legends and histories from the ground [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grounder POV, Myth making
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 13:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3612120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dealan/pseuds/dealan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never forget they came from the stars. That is the reminder the people of the Twelve Clans repeat to themselves whenever they run across one of the Skaikru.</p>
            </blockquote>





	some legends are told (you will remember me for centuries)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Grounder POV myth of the Legend of the Sky People. Prompt is a twist on the opening line of Guy Gavriel Kay’s Lions of Al-Rassan.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction - all events and actions are completely made up. Absolutely nothing in this story should be taken as fact. This original work of fan fiction is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/); attribution should include a link to this page.

 

 **N** ever forget that they came from the stars. 

 

That is the reminder the people of the Twelve Clans repeat to themselves whenever they run across one of the Skaikru. 

 

It is easy to think that the Skaikru can be easily conquered. 

 

After all, when the first Skaikru fell from the heavens, they were not scouts or warriors, but children. Untrained, with no knowledge of the ground, no horses, and barely any weapons or supplies. They hunted with no armor, dared to swim with the eels with reckless abandon, and threw celebrations into the night. 

 

The Trikru believed that they could eliminate them easily. 

 

They were wrong.

 

* * *

  
When the Skaikru sent their children first, they were meant to be a warning to the ground: _we are coming, and even the smallest, most vulnerable of us is stronger than you can ever imagine._

 

The children of the Skaikru are not of this earth. Though they appear to be weak, their gods have smiled up on them and have blessed them with powers neither Grounder nor Mountain Man can match.

 

They say that the one named Raven flew down from the heavens by herself, a shooting star that burned through the sky, and that she emerged unscathed because she can manipulate metal and fire. She is their inventor, a builder of weapons that she would call toys that would decimate a village. The warriors who were there on the day of the great march against the Mountain Men say she brought down the dam with the aid of only one warrior. The rare few who were at the _Heda’s_ side speak of a device, no larger than a rabbit’s foot, that blew open the impenetrable door of Mt. Weather. They say that her love of metal is so great, she has begun to attach pieces to her legs, to replace weak flesh.

 

The rescued from the mountain say that their blood was prized by the Mountain Men because it is fortified by their closeness to the sun, impurities melted away in fire as they fell through the sky. That one syringe of Skaikru blood can transform Mountain Men into Grounders, give them the strength to come to the ground without masks and survive.  Echo of the Ice Nation says that she witnessed the one called Belomi come back to life and strangle a Mountain Man to death with his bare hands, mere minutes after being bled for Harvest.

 

It is even said that the Skaikru can turn Reapers back into Grounders. It is known that Okteivia, once Indra’s second, fell in love with a Reaper. Rumor has it, he found her when she descended to the earth and landed on a cloudglow of butterflies, and for her love, she brought him back from the brink of insanity with her kiss and erased the stain of madness from his mind. 

 

And yet in the pantheon of warriors among the Skaikru children, the most fearsome of all is their leader, Clarke.

 

Do not be fooled by her helpless appearance. She is a trickster god, with a silver tongue and an illusion of weakness. She dresses herself in bare-thin cloths and speaks of mercy and peace. She would have you think she is a child, easily taken, easily broken.  

 

She is not.

 

She has walked through the feeding grounds of the _pauna_ and left without a scratch. She has drunk from a poisoned bottle and felt no effect. She escaped from the mountain when no one else could.

 

And Clarke kom Skaikru’s hands are drenched in blood. She holds little value in anything but the lives of her people. 

 

To call her people to the ground, she sent missiles into a village and destroyed the home of 29 Trikru families. 

To save less than 80 of her people, she singlehandedly burned 300 Trikru warriors in a ring of fire. 

Her lover massacred TonDC and took 18 lives of children and innocents, and the only price he paid was a merciful death. 

 

For Clarke believes that one drop of Skaikru blood is worth more than Grounder lives. She would burn the sky, raze the earth, and boil the sea to save just one of her people. 

 

That is why she sought to make an alliance with the great Commander of the Twelve Clans. Rather than risk the lives of her own people, Clarke tried to trick the _Heda_ into sacrificing Grounder lives by pretending that the Skaikru needed a great army to defeat the mountain. It is even whispered that she tried to seduce the _Heda_ to her side. But the Commander was wise enough to see through this ruse and instead used the Skaikru to save her people without shedding Grounder blood.

 

There are some among the Trikru who fear retribution for this act. In _Heda_  they trust, but they wait to see if Clarke will turn her wrath towards her former allies and strike against them for daring to promise aid, then abandoning her at the gates of hell. For blood must have blood, and it is known that Clarke’s rage at this betrayal was so fierce and her lust for blood so great, she brought the mountain down by herself. She shot the commander of their people, slaughtered the guilty for their crimes, and burned their innocent children alive. Three hundred and fifty Mountain Men, they argue - no, it was five hundred, others say; a thousand, some insist.

 

An entire mountain of lives, all agree, were forfeited to pay for the deaths of six Skaikru.

 

 _Jus drein jus daun,_ but there is no justice or equality in this.

 

And she is just a child, they have heard Clarke’s mother cry.

 

* * *

 

Do not underestimate the Skaikru. 

 

Do not think they are weak, simply because their fence has gaps huge enough to send five hundred spears and a thousand arrows through them.

They are not careless though they walk in the desert without carts or horses.

They are not vulnerable though they wear mere linens instead of armor while hunting.

They will not die easily just because you see them bleed.  

 

They are stronger than you think. 

 

Clarke kom Skaikru and her people came from the stars. Never forget that.

 

 

_[fin]_


End file.
